Ferria pressed a hand to her chest. “You wound me, Vassim. As if I would ever require a forced mating.”
I made an effort not to scoff out loud. I knew exactly what type of pleasure house she ran and the spells she put on her pleasurers and visitors alike to eliminate their inhibitions. I’d been the recipient of them before, although I had been willing. All were not, and her protestations of innocence were laughable.
“Then what?” I said, between gritted teeth.
She stood and moved around the small room, her colorful skirts swirling as she pulled objects from shelves. A glass bowl appeared in the center of the table, making Juliette jump. As Ferria passed behind us, she snatched a single hair from Juliette’s head without a word, provoking a yelp from the human. I took Juliette’s hand again to calm her and found it like ice.
Ferria sat and added the hair to the bowl along with a violet powder and a clear liquid that poured from the silver bottle like syrup. She waved her hands over the concoction, and pink smoke rose from it, swirling into several shapes before tightening into a spiral and vanishing.
Ferria giggled as if she were a child, smiling up at both of us. “Quite the opposite, my dears.”
“What’s going on?” Juliette asked, jerking her hand from mine. “I agreed to come here because you said the witch might tell you to let me go. But you’ve both been talking in some strange language, and now she’s made some sort of potion with my hair. For all I know, this could all be some show put on for my benefit, and it never had anything to do with you releasing me.”
When she’d finished her rant, she glared at both is us.
“Not as helpless or as simple as she looks,” Ferria said in Vandar, her voice tinged with admiration. Then she spoke in the universal tongue to Juliette. “I’m afraid I cannot tell Raas Vassim to release you, human. Not if he wishes to break his curse.”
“What?” Juliette gasped.
Ferria ignored her and focused her gaze on me, switching back to Vandar. “To break the curse for good, you must take the female as your mate.”
“But I already told you—“
“Not by force, Vandar.” She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, “It’s always force with these raiders.” She locked eyes with me again. “She must come to you willingly before the alignment of the two moons of Vandar, and she must take your marks.”
I sank down on the bench, her words like a punch to my gut. If I had to rely on Juliette taking my mating marks in order to break the curse, I might as well fly her back to her home world now. I wasn’t worthy of any female’s devotion, much less one who was as pure as this one. Even if she was strong enough to be a Vandar’s mate.
I peered over at the small creature, her blue eyes wide and her plump lips quivering. Which she wasn’t.
Chapter Ten
Juliette
The Raas didn’t speak as we left the witch and walked back through the pleasure house. Though he hadn’t taken my hand again, he did steer me forward by resting one hand lightly on my back.
I glanced over my shoulder at the seer, who hadn’t stood from her chair when Vassim had jerked to standing. But when I returned my gaze for a final glimpse of the raven-haired female, she was gone, replaced by a fluttering insect with blue wings.
Shaking my head at this sight, I continued forward and back into the stone foyer. The Raas didn’t pause in his long, purposeful strides, his kilt slapping his thighs, but I hesitated when I saw how the quiet space had changed since we’d been inside the room with Ferria.
It was no longer empty and nearly silent. The hall now buzzed with the chatter of voices, as females hung out of windows that hadn’t been there earlier and leaned their ample bosoms over balconies that seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
“Where did—?”
“Do you believe in magic now?” the Raas asked in a gruff voice, tugging the door open and propelling us both through it.
Luckily, the outside of the floating island looked much the same, and the boat we’d arrived on was bobbing beside it, as if in a body of water. Raas Vassim handed me to the alien in the boat and leapt in beside me.
“Duggari,” he growled. Then, when the alien gave him a blank look, he added. “Let’s go.”
We left the island and floated away, the gleaming castle fading quickly into the purple haze of fog. I had so many questions about the planet and the witch that I didn’t know where to begin. But most of all, I had questions about what Ferria had said to me.
“Why can’t you release me?” I asked the Raas, twisting to look up at him. “What curse was she talking about?”
He remained silent, pressing his lips together as the boat skimmed along through the mist.
“I thought you said the witch would tell you to let me go.”
Finally, he met my eyes. “I said she might say that. It was what I was hoping.”
That surprised me. “You were hoping she’d tell you to let me go? What happened to you keeping me because I stowed away on your ship?”
His expression was dark. “You are not meant for life on a Vandar warbird. I see that now.”
Even though I agreed with him, I was annoyed that he’d said it. “You think I’m too sheltered and naïve to survive on your big, scary warship, is that it?”
He tilted his head at me. “Something like that.”
“You know what?” I turned away from him and crossed my arms over my chest. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do. If I’m
